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Pondering Clarion

Clarion is one of the most widely known and respected writing workshops in the country. Each year, they accept a handful of writers for six weeks of intense work. Someone once said that the “six weeks of Clarion are the literary equivalent of boot camp.” I would believe it, judging by the comments I’ve heard from members of the group

The process is fairly straightforward. Send in an application with two complete short stories by April 1st, 2003. If accepted, there is a $100 enrollment fee to hold your spot, and the balance of the $1059 fee due upon arrival to Clarion. One nice thing is that this counts as four undergraduate credits from MSU.

Sounds easy so far, right? I think so. The actual difficulty, aside from actually being accepted, is getting out of work for six weeks and keeping my job. At the stage we are at, where I’m one half of our entire development team and we each have a seperate and distinct skillset, being unavailable for that long is nearly impossible.

Perhaps going this year is infeasible. Even with six months advanced warning, I’m not sure I could pull it off. Still, I wonder if I should apply to Clarion anyways and deal with the time issue if I actually get accepted.